All posts by Deep Fried Man

Daniel Friedman known on stage as Deep Fried Man, is a South African comedian, musician and writer, based in Johannesburg. Formerly part of the alternative folk scene in Johannesburg, he made the transition to comedy at the beginning of 2010.
He was voted Best Newcomer at the first annual Comics Choice Awards, the brainchild of South African comic John Vlismas, held at the Teatro, Montecasino, Johannesburg in January 2011

Sometimes we go about our daily business online, blissfully oblivious to the many services that make our lives easier. Services that make us realise that there are many aspects of our real lives that we don’t have similar innovations to help us with. Here are a few of the things that we take for granted online and that would really enrich our lives offline. Inventors of technology, I hope you’re reading this. We need all of the ideas below implemented as soon as possible. The world is depending on you. Make it happen!
1. Real Life Reputation Management
Online Reputation Management...

Many Memeburn readers are considered "social media gurus", most often by themselves. A "social media guru" is kind of like being a spiritual guru, except instead of devoting your life to the quest for enlightenment, you devote it to trying to make big brands look good online. I am not making fun of these people, in fact I am one myself. I was recently ordained to official guru status by his holiness, Śri Sathya Dave Duarte after staring at the screen of my Macbook for seven days, until I had a godlike marketing awakening. My awakening was this: to...

Nelson Mandela -- father of the nation, freedom fighter, an example to all of humanity. But sadly, like other equally historically important iconic heroes such as Lil Wayne and Kim Kardashian, sometimes following someone as important as Madiba on Twitter can be a little bit of a disappointment. The struggle could never be reduced to 140 characters or less, so maybe it's just as well Madiba had already retired from politics by the time Twitter became popular. We can only guess as to what he would have tweeted about. I sincerely hope it wouldn't have gone a little something...

I have said it time and time again. Despite the efforts of various counter-revolutionary forces to make the internet about other things, like social interaction, the spread of important information or porn, everyone knows that the internet's true purpose is to glorify cats by any means necessary.
It is well-known among people interested in the actual truth (this is not even a conspiracy theory at all), that the internet was originally created by brainwashed human slaves at the behest of The Meow Meow, a top-secret cat organisation whose aim is the progression and advancement of cat society at the...

Knowing the right and wrong way to conduct oneself on Twitter can be difficult, and so I present to you a guide to proper Twitter etiquette, so that you can be a true gentleman or lady of the Twittersphere. Each etiquette tip is, aptly, in tweet format.
I actually did send all these out in tweets earlier this week, and #TwitterEtiquette ended up trending in South Africa. Which, since I don't have a day job and spend every waking hour on Twitter, is the equivalent of you getting a raise or promotion at work. Yay me!
1. Don't beg...

The other day I received a tweet from an extremely beautiful woman. I followed her instantly, because the comment she had sent me was profound, of course, not because of her striking resemblance to Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen.
Imagine my surprise when my research indicated that this uncanny likeness was caused by the fact that the woman's avatar was indeed a pic of Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen, and that the woman was actually an overweight middle-aged housewife.
Her tweets instantly seemed far less profound and I unfollowed her, of course. But it taught me an important lesson, which is that...

Do you spend an awful lot of time posting comments on the internet? If so, it's possible that you are a troll. But, just knowing this is not enough. There are so many different types of trolls operating on the net today. Take this handy, informative and completely serious quiz to find out…
What kind of internet troll are you?
1. Someone writes a truly heartfelt blog post that lays bare the very essence of their soul. You decide to post a comment below, saying:
a) You say you are depressed in paragraph one, yet in paragraph two you say that...

Before Facebook, people had to rely on outdated things such as photo albums or genuine human interaction to keep track of their progression. Now, the kind of interactions you have on Facebook can help tell you exactly where you are in your life. Which is on Facebook, mainly. But here's what else Facebook can tell you about what stage of development you're going through...
1. The tentative teens
Facebook is not yet an extremely important part of your life. You use it mainly for communicating with your bestie after school, because when you get home it's like, totes boring and...

I have done extensive research, performing interviews with countless mobile users (well, four actually, but who's counting) to get to the bottom of which phones are at the top of the pile. This is what I discovered…
Why we're better than everyone else -- iPhone users
It is ridiculous that we should even be asked why our phones are superior to yours, dirty commoner. What an insult! Was the patron saint Steve Jobs not martyred so that we could enjoy superior mobile technology? But don't worry, I just installed a new app that is answering this question for me while...

Way, way back before the internet was invented, there was a crude and ancient way that people used to share information on a primitive form of parchment made out of crushed trees. The parchment was called 'paper', and on the parchment words would be printed, forming what people would refer to as a 'book'.
As a youngster, I remember that, before bed, my father would tell me of wondrous things from times long ago. As well as other things, such as penny-farthing bicycles, horse-drawn carriages and 'the plague', he told me about these quaint and loveable things called 'books'....

Like you, I once naively thought that social media was used for sharing your life experiences and bonding with close family, friends, and the random people who send friendship requests that you accept for no apparent good reason. But there is so much more to social media, and here are five of the most underrated things that you can experience in-between tweeting about what you just had for lunch and poking people you only vaguely know...
1. Twoogle
Twoogle is the great new practice of certain Twitter users taking the word Google and the word Twitter, combining them with an added...

I am, admittedly, not as bad as my mother when it comes to understanding the technological trappings of our modern world. I am even sometimes able to provide her with technical support when she calls me with her problems and queries (examples include "how do I like something on Facebook?" and "where is on?"). But, for someone who was born sometime after 1940, I am somewhat of a technological retard, and here are some of the things I struggle with the most…
1. Smartphones
I have a BlackBerry. Apparently this is classified as a smart phone, but I have to say...

Deep Fried Man is a well-known local comedian. He tells his story about how he used Twitter to get some customer satisfaction.
This is the story of my battle to use social media to solve the problems I had with my internet contract. You could call it a David and Goliath story. Except in this version, Goliath is just mildly bruised rather than slain, and David escapes (largely) unscathed to fight another day. It was, at least, a partial victory.
It all started when I got a broadband contract with Vodacom. Two gigs, plus two "Night Owl gigs" between midnight...